Radeon HD 7970 Price Cuts Not Any Time Soon: Report

[m1dg3t]

Board partner's get their MSRP's from Nvidia/ATi. Whether they'll admit to it or not.

Ya 400 bux in 2002 was for a Radeon 9700 Pro All In Wonder.

And $740 for a x850xt pe in '04 NEVER again! I still have that card and i used the shit out of it, think i ran that card for 4yrs, maybe 5 I had to there was no choice for that kind of money i spent. I aint stupid rich

That was a time when i had epeen envy, i actually remember spending $300 for 1gb of dual channel RAM

Thankfully i'm smarter now, i think?

 

[Steevo]

I paid 549 for a 1800XT only to sell it less than a year later for $100.


I was smart about most of my other purchases, bang for the buck for the games I play.


I have honestly given up on ATI/AMD and their hardware acceleration of anything compute based. Not enough stuff uses it. They were the first with Folding @ Home though due to their full precision hardware.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well It did have extra equipment on the board itself, probably one of the most intricate display boards at its time

Board partner's get their MSRP's from Nvidia/ATi. Whether they'll admit to it or not.



And $740 for a x850xt pe in '04 NEVER again! I still have that card and i used the shit out of it, think i ran that card for 4yrs, maybe 5 I had to there was no choice for that kind of money i spent. I aint stupid rich

That was a time when i had epeen envy, i actually remember spending $300 for 1gb of dual channel RAM

Thankfully i'm smarter now, i think?

 

[nikko]

This means the opposite. There will be hudge price drops. This is like basic marketing lies. have you learned nothing.

 

[m1dg3t]

Well It did have extra equipment on the board itself, probably one of the most intricate display boards at its time

That's the thing, at least the AIW card's did so much more than just munch FPS. I wish they would bring them back

 

[xenocide]

All im gonna say is - When you have an overclock goggles you see things differently. I simply cannot and will not compere any two products that I'm gonna use by their stock frequency performance.
You can call it overclo-mania you can call it whatever. IMO the HD7850 is a better card then the GTX570\HD6970 for example.

See that chart, over there, on the wall? Check that out.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Disappointing to say the least, now all nvidia needs to do is knock about $10 or $20 off the 680, and they will be sitting pretty.

 

[Steevo]

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_680/images/max_oc_vs_7970.gif

See that chart, over there, on the wall? Check that out.

You seem to be able to read or at least know that on a chart higher is usually better. However, no 7970 voltage adjustment must have escaped you.

Other reviews with voltage tuning show 1200+ core clock. These cards much like everything from 5xxx series on also seek to clock better at lower temps., allowing for 1300+ with water cooling.

Most of us here will at least change TIM to get better temps.

 

[N3M3515]

Board partner's get their MSRP's from Nvidia/ATi. Whether they'll admit to it or not.



And $740 for a x850xt pe in '04 NEVER again! I still have that card and i used the shit out of it, think i ran that card for 4yrs, maybe 5 I had to there was no choice for that kind of money i spent. I aint stupid rich

That was a time when i had epeen envy, i actually remember spending $300 for 1gb of dual channel RAM

Thankfully i'm smarter now, i think?

Funny thing is that for example AMD is making people believe that if they price the 7870 at $250 it would be a HUGE discount...........and that's the price it was supposed to launch at.
When it is at $199, there is a discount.

 

[symmetrical]

Brand loyalists are the only one who will pay "More" for "Less." And yes I'm talking about you ATI fanboys.

The GTX 680 is equal or better than a 7970, costs $50 less, introduces new features like dynamic clock speeds, has lower power consumption, has lower power requirements, also NOW supports 3 monitor gaming with one card, 3D vision (with actual driver support unlike AMD HD3D), PhysX, overclocks easily, and more than likely will only get better with driver updates.

And before you point to me as some Nvidia fanboy, I have an MSi 6850 OC, and Two Sapphire 6950s as well as my GTX 580.

AMD for the sake of the consumer, drop that sucker to $499 or lower to level the playing field.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Brand loyalists are the only one who will pay "More" for "Less." And yes I'm talking about you ATI fanboys.

The GTX 680 is equal or better than a 7970, costs $50 less, introduces new features like dynamic clock speeds, has lower power consumption, has lower power requirements, also NOW supports 3 monitor gaming with one card, 3D vision (with actual driver support unlike AMD HD3D), PhysX, overclocks easily, and more than likely will only get better with driver updates.

And before you point to me as some Nvidia fanboy, I have an MSi 6850 OC, and Two Sapphire 6950s as well as my GTX 580.

AMD for the sake of the consumer, drop that sucker to $499 or lower to level the playing field.

OMG your using logic rather than blind favoritism .. . .. RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEE!

 

[alienstorexxx]

i don't like how this looks for amd.

the only way, people would buy right now a amd 7xxx card would be a fair price, competitive with nvidia 5xx and amd's 6xxx. well... it's not in that place.

the reasons are that nvidia has shown us the power, of his generation of gpu's, and it gives a good taste of what the next gtx650 and gtx660 could be.

me (and i think no one) would like to buy a 7770 now and, in like, 3 months, appears the gtx650 faster, more eficcient and cheaper, as the gtx680 to the 7970. (same with 7850/7870 and gtx660)
that is something i don't want.

i think amd is speculating with that 1gb vram extra, seems they want to trick unexperienced customers that asks "wich one has more *megabytes*" really i don't know what to think. i hope that, when amd said they were going to be more agressive, they don't mean overpricing..

 

[alienstorexxx]

i need to say something more. i'm sick of some reviews. i mean, why don't the separe the game titles that really matter in one bench, and in another, syntethic benchs and the games that actually nobody would care to run at more than 60fps (because the can run with an onboard graphics card or they are old gen, or engine disappeared) like cod's (as seen on TPU) or farcry2 *and cod (on guru3d) and so many other games and reviewers. i forgot, shity just cause 2 WTF?, *and of course a lot more.

because those fps affect on final result, nobody cares about them, but they are affecting on final score that everyone will be talking about and consulting them.

 

[Benetanegia]

So let me get this right Amd design their Pcbs right , from the off manage increased performance whilst keeping costs down and your wrong about the memory their bus size has increased and memory standards is now 2 gig not 1

Well the 7970 does have 384 bit, but that does not justify a $150 jump. Neither does the die size or yields, if according to AMD, they have good yields, or so they said to their investors. The price cannot be justified in any form other than "we asked this much because we could". Well now, they can't and should lower the price.

I was talking in general anyway. 4870>5870>6970 were very similar and the price increased by $50-100. 6870 to 7870 are very similar and price increased by $100. 2 Gb GDDR5 does not cost much more than 1 Gb GDDR5, as in 2x as much, it does not cost double, not eveb close, and it does not cost more than 1 Gb GDDR5 several months/years ago. 8 chips vs 12 chips does increase price more but not by $50 or anything close to that.

So their prices can't be justified now, neither really is GTX680's price, except for the fact that it's the fastest card and is actually priced lower than the competing card, so it's more justified.

 

[dj-electric]

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_680/images/max_oc_vs_7970.gif

See that chart, over there, on the wall? Check that out.

My answer to that chart is NO. 1080Mhz core for HD7970 is what w1zz calls MAXOC. That PathOC as in pathetic OC.

 

[eidairaman1]

That's the thing, at least the AIW card's did so much more than just munch FPS. I wish they would bring them back

Ya but no need for a Analog TV Tuner, it be nice if they were DTV

 

[eidairaman1]

Physx is still barely used and easily overclocks? hardly AMD boards didnt need a cheater board to reach the speed it did. Btw you wouldnt be accused of being a NV fanboy if you wouldnt talk the way you do.

Brand loyalists are the only one who will pay "More" for "Less." And yes I'm talking about you ATI fanboys.

The GTX 680 is equal or better than a 7970, costs $50 less, introduces new features like dynamic clock speeds, has lower power consumption, has lower power requirements, also NOW supports 3 monitor gaming with one card, 3D vision (with actual driver support unlike AMD HD3D), PhysX, overclocks easily, and more than likely will only get better with driver updates.

And before you point to me as some Nvidia fanboy, I have an MSi 6850 OC, and Two Sapphire 6950s as well as my GTX 580.

AMD for the sake of the consumer, drop that sucker to $499 or lower to level the playing field.

 

[n-ster]

It's 7% at 1200p and 4% at 1600p, at 1050p it's even bigger. I only say this because you are repeating the wrong number so many times as fact. At least get it right, just saying, no offense.

Regarding the thread, I agree with Yo Wattup's comment. It's really fun to watch so many comments justifying a higher price on a product that is inferior to another one, even if only by 5% average. In every past generation in the last 5+ years Nvidia has had competing cards that were consistently 15%-25% faster and its price was only increased by just as much, except for the absolute fastest one which had a $50 premium over the perf/$ that would be expected, no more. This made Nvidia the evil one, but now that the tables have turned on pricing policies (not on who has the fastest card), it's OK to even price an inferior product higher. Funny.

Nvidia always had a worse perf/$ except for 1 card where it was the same, usually in the mid range. GTX 260, GTX 460 Ti etc.

And people don't seem to know the basics of math. The 7970 is 7% slower than the GTX 680, doesn't mean the 680 is 7% faster! 100/93 = 7.53% faster. Now think about it. I haven't checked the prices but assuming the GTX 680 can be had for 500$ and the 7970 at 550$. If you normalize the 680 price/perf to the 7970's, you get 591.42$, and considering it is the fastest card, an 8$ price premium would be normal, so basically, the GTX 680 priced itself 100$ LOWER than the 7970 if you take into account 1200p perf which is usually where you have to base yourself off as most people use that resolution.

It's the same thing as if, let's say, the HD 8850 and the GTX 760 Ti were priced at 350$, but the HD 8850 is 20% faster. Would you be defending NV in this case? Also note NV usually has better driver support and a few more features like CUDA/PhysX. CUDA can be a great feature for some, else it usually doesn't matter

Yes, 20% faster perf/$ on the most used resolution is steps ahead. I know I'm being a bit favorable to NV here not taking into account 2560x1600, but before the cheap Korean panels, noone except people who had 700$ to burn on a monitor used the resolution, and usually they'd buy 2 cards if they did (so you'd have to take into account CFX and SLI scaling etc)

TL;DR: If you compare it to a 7970, perf/$, the GTX 680 is 100$ lower, that's like 17% cheaper perf/$ (or 20% faster perf in perf/$) (again this is for the 1200p resolution ONLY as most people use 1080p, higher resolutions the diff is much lower). Many here seem to be biased towards AMD

also:

Brand loyalists are the only one who will pay "More" for "Less." And yes I'm talking about you ATI fanboys.

The GTX 680 is equal or better than a 7970, costs $50 less, introduces new features like dynamic clock speeds, has lower power consumption, has lower power requirements, also NOW supports 3 monitor gaming with one card, 3D vision (with actual driver support unlike AMD HD3D), PhysX, overclocks easily, and more than likely will only get better with driver updates.

And before you point to me as some Nvidia fanboy, I have an MSi 6850 OC, and Two Sapphire 6950s as well as my GTX 580.

AMD for the sake of the consumer, drop that sucker to $499 or lower to level the playing field.

+1 Except I have a GT 240, 2 6950s and a 6870, close enough xD

 

[Benetanegia]

Nvidia always had a worse perf/$ except for 1 card where it was the same, usually in the mid range. GTX 260, GTX 460 Ti etc.

I agree on everything you said except on this. In my experience what you described only happens later on in the life cycle. When launched and in the months after launch they are equal, sometimes AMD ahead, sometimes Nvidia ahead, and changes every month after price reductions from both camps. Of course the flagship "fastest card on the planet" has to always be excluded since it will always come with a premium and 90% of the times it's been a Nvidia card.

Over the time, what you dscribed is true probably. AMD does the last price reduction while Nvidia doesn't, or doesn't reduce it as much, but this is only because of how the market goes. If you look at sales of discrete cards, Nvidia has a 60%+ of market share so it does not make sense for them to lower the price below a certain point when they are selling 2x as many cards at the current price. And we are talking about the $100-200 bracket mostly, where AMD having a better perf/$ ratio barely means a $5 or $10 difference. Essentially AMD does have the better ratio (say 10% better ratio), but for an extra of $5 you get many features like CUDA, PhysX and the peace of mind of knowing that most times than not driver support and optimisation for new games is going to be there the day the games are launched and not in the next driver package. I think most users feel those advantages and that's why Nvidia enjoys the market share and slightly higher ASP. But again, from what I've seen at least, perf/$ is almost always the same at launch and next few months: it's 3-6 months later when it starts to "deviate" from that norm.

EDIT: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/30.html

Even when HD7970 was reviewed, long before GTX500 cards got the price reduction:

GTX570 better perf/$ than HD6970, GTX560 Ti better than HD6950.

 

[n-ster]

I don't take into account CUDA as it is pretty niche. I think the market share favoring NV is much more because of their marketing

We'll have to respectfully agree to disagree on this point I've rarely ever seen NV beat AMD perf/$... At launch or later on. IIRC, the 5XXX series was a great example, especially with the launch prices of the 5850. Even after the price went up, it still was great perf/$

EDIT: Yea that's my point, recently NV has been getting better perf/$, AMD needs to do price cuts! Yet people keep defending them for no reason..

 

[Benetanegia]

I don't take into account CUDA as it is pretty niche. I think the market share favoring NV is much more because of their marketing

We'll have to respectfully agree to disagree on this point I've rarely ever seen NV beat AMD perf/$... At launch or later on. IIRC, the 5XXX series was a great example, especially with the launch prices of the 5850. Even after the price went up, it still was great perf/$

Well look at my edit, the only AMD cards with decidedly better perf/$ there are HD6850 and 6870 and IMO it's not random coincidence that their competing parts are GTX460 and GTX560, by far the best selling cards of late: which means their prices remained higher as I explained in the other post.

EDIT: Maybe we are talking about different time frames. I'm talking about the last 3 years or so, I wouldn't say that's "recently", it's been a long time. They have been pretty even or much to my surprise, NV has actually been better according to the chart. I mean, GTX470 and 480, both better than HD5870...

 

[n-ster]

That's kind of my point, NV's has been stepping it up lately, yet people still have still negative view of NV perf/$. My point was more on the 5XXX and 4XXX series of AMD

 

[Benetanegia]

That's kind of my point, NV's has been stepping it up lately, yet people still have still negative view of NV perf/$. My point was more on the 5XXX and 4XXX series of AMD

Well, so we are arguing about what "recently" means then. About 4xxx series, I agree, but not about HD5xxx. It's like the chart shows. It seems HD5850 is the exception, not the norm.

EDIT: I think the reason that people tend to think AMD has better perf/$ is because they always do the wrong/weird/biased comparison. Look at old threads and you'll see people comparing HD5870 to GTX480, HD5850 to GTX470, HD6970 to GTX580, HD6950 to GTX570 and so on, I even remember people comparing GTX460 with HD5770, based on the basis that both were the mid-range parts, even with the obvious performance difference. Of course comparing different "class" cards will show better results. The lower you go in price points the better that perf/$ is.

 

[NHKS]

talking abt when AMD 'might' reduce prices - I dont think we can expect any drops until nvidia outs its 670Ti / 670 cards in the (300$ - 450$) range, and that will probably be May at earliest.. and also depends on how nV will price those cards.. until then AMD, from a business perpective, will not be concerned of losing any sales to nV with the 7970, if any(considering the shortage in supply of 680s) .. they still have majority of their 28nm products(7950, 78xx & 77xx) without direct(28nm) competition..

it's the overall business case they will be looking at rather than concentrating with one model, which if they now cut by 50$ will have a cascading effect on the prices of other 7xxx models..

also, the 6xxx series is not going to be EOL any time soon(at least not this year)... so we can expect AMD (and also nV) to price current & previous gens at different price points(a 'portfolio' made up of more than one generation of cards).. simply dropping price of one model could affect the prices(value) of other models

below is very likely the 2012 product line-up for both sides

 

[Regenweald]

Gentlemen and ladies, the reason that AMD prices will not fall anytime soon is very simple.

True, what what probably meant to be Nvidia's mid range card is a little faster than AMD's high end (in gaming) and true, the 680 is a great purchase, but where are they ? Don't you all think that AMD had a very good idea of Nvidia's stock in the channel ? The fact is there is simply no physical competition currently and apparently will not be for a couple of months.
So the question is : Do you price war with 'competition' that isn't on the shelves ?

this isn't about fps or perf per dollar, this is simply supply and demand, there is demand and currently, AMD has a complete card lineup of supply. Nvidia does not.